From the Oxford Dictionary onlineplagiarize
/playj riz/ (also plagiarise)
• verb take (the work or idea of someone else) and pass it off as one’s own.
— DERIVATIVES plagiarism noun plagiarist noun plagiarizer noun.
— ORIGIN from Latin plagiarius ‘kidnapper’, from Greek plagion ‘a kidnapping’.
Isn’t it a horrendously ugly word? In any way you look at it – take the work of someone else and pass it off as one’s own...kidnapping – kidnapping another person’s work. That’s stealing. And stealing is wrong and can’t be justified, ever.
I never use MFB to grandstand about matters but something dire has recently happened to several bloggers whom I know and respect greatly.
That something is that their reviews, their hard work, their voices, have been stolen by another blogger, who by changing a word here and there, is passing off entire reviews as her own. That is reprehensible.
Not only is it bad news for my blogging chum who has been ripped off, but it is also a slap in the face of the publishers who had been sending review copies out to the cheating little scoundrel who has been doing it. They are being taken for a ride – their trust has been thrown back in their face, and the reviewer in question, gets to brag how many books she gets, how much she is trusted in the industry, when to be honest, she’s no better than a thief. And you know what, you're giving me and my fellow bloggers who work our butts off because we love what we do a very bad name.
And what makes matters worse is that although this girl has been confronted by various bloggers about this, she’s explained it away by saying: oh, I read your reviews on the book and probably, inadvertently, “borrowed” some terms from your review / or I studied your review as part of a thesis I’m writing. Let me say: what complete and utter shitty rubbish. Unless you are someone who has photographic memory / or you are a trained actor in memorising monologues, you cannot, no matter how hard you try, remember phrases that well, unless you are sitting there, copy-typing it, with a thesaurus to hand, to change one or two words to make it appear your own.
No one will believe it. Especially if your reviews go from pretty superficial to incredibly in-depth and verbose seemingly overnight. And how your reviews don’t actually correspond in tone, depth and voice.
Plagiarism is something everyone is worried about. Authors, students and professors, in fact, most professionals across a variety of industries are deeply concerned by this. Having your hard work ripped off, in any shape or form, is a violation. It undermines your integrity, you start doubting yourself – can it be, perhaps they didn’t mean to, should I be flattered that someone thought I wrote that well that it could be ripped off? No, it’s a crime. And someone, probably several someones have been getting away with it.
This is the link to my friend Adele from Persnickety Snark’s website - http://www.persnicketysnark.com/2010/04/plagiarism-personal-account.html - where she raises the question of plagiarism. She’s the blogger who has been wronged by this. There are other bloggers who will be participating in this discussion about the silent crime of plagiarism in the next few days. Several of them are in the same boat as Adele. They have recognised their reviews lifted almost word for word and used elsewhere. What a cop-out, hey? What a slap in the face. What a disgustingly pointless and sneaky thing to do! Why lie? If you can’t cope with the review load, fess up, tell the publishers and take the time to read and review the books you have got teetering next to the computer. Where is your pride in your own work? Your morals and your ethics? Don’t steal – you’ll be caught out and your name will be mud. In fact, you have been caught out and your name is mud. Steps are being taken and legal counsel will be sought.
It may not seem much to you guys. I mean, a review is a review. How bad can it be? We bloggers don’t have much we can call our own – no matter how much I kid about “owning” my authors I review, they really don’t belong to me. All I own on this blog, and all my friends who review with me on here, is our voice and our love for reading and reviewing. If someone in our community – who although big, is actually quite small – can take our hard work and put it out there as their own, where do we stand? If we say nothing, we condone the theft. If we kick up a fuss, hopefully a larger audience will realise it is taking place and start paying closer attention to what they are reading online and reconsider where they are placing their trust.
Plagiarism is theft. It sucks. It sucks for me as a blogger. I can only imagine how awful it must be for writers who have gone through this in the past, where their work has been lifted and others have profited. But fortunately there are people out there, fans and friends, who pick up on these things and they are quick to point it out. Please, pop along to some of the other blogs I’m linking to below, and support this drive we’re initiating, the whole book bloggers against plagiarism thing – it’s worthwhile.
Tirzah http://www.thecompulsivereader.com/
Kristi http://www.thestorysiren.com/
Steph Su http://stephsureads.blogspot.com/
Lenore http://presentinglenore.blogspot.com
Sharon http://www.sharonlovesbooksandcats.com/
/playj riz/ (also plagiarise)
• verb take (the work or idea of someone else) and pass it off as one’s own.
— DERIVATIVES plagiarism noun plagiarist noun plagiarizer noun.
— ORIGIN from Latin plagiarius ‘kidnapper’, from Greek plagion ‘a kidnapping’.
Isn’t it a horrendously ugly word? In any way you look at it – take the work of someone else and pass it off as one’s own...kidnapping – kidnapping another person’s work. That’s stealing. And stealing is wrong and can’t be justified, ever.
I never use MFB to grandstand about matters but something dire has recently happened to several bloggers whom I know and respect greatly.
That something is that their reviews, their hard work, their voices, have been stolen by another blogger, who by changing a word here and there, is passing off entire reviews as her own. That is reprehensible.
Not only is it bad news for my blogging chum who has been ripped off, but it is also a slap in the face of the publishers who had been sending review copies out to the cheating little scoundrel who has been doing it. They are being taken for a ride – their trust has been thrown back in their face, and the reviewer in question, gets to brag how many books she gets, how much she is trusted in the industry, when to be honest, she’s no better than a thief. And you know what, you're giving me and my fellow bloggers who work our butts off because we love what we do a very bad name.
And what makes matters worse is that although this girl has been confronted by various bloggers about this, she’s explained it away by saying: oh, I read your reviews on the book and probably, inadvertently, “borrowed” some terms from your review / or I studied your review as part of a thesis I’m writing. Let me say: what complete and utter shitty rubbish. Unless you are someone who has photographic memory / or you are a trained actor in memorising monologues, you cannot, no matter how hard you try, remember phrases that well, unless you are sitting there, copy-typing it, with a thesaurus to hand, to change one or two words to make it appear your own.
No one will believe it. Especially if your reviews go from pretty superficial to incredibly in-depth and verbose seemingly overnight. And how your reviews don’t actually correspond in tone, depth and voice.
Plagiarism is something everyone is worried about. Authors, students and professors, in fact, most professionals across a variety of industries are deeply concerned by this. Having your hard work ripped off, in any shape or form, is a violation. It undermines your integrity, you start doubting yourself – can it be, perhaps they didn’t mean to, should I be flattered that someone thought I wrote that well that it could be ripped off? No, it’s a crime. And someone, probably several someones have been getting away with it.
This is the link to my friend Adele from Persnickety Snark’s website - http://www.persnicketysnark.com/2010/04/plagiarism-personal-account.html - where she raises the question of plagiarism. She’s the blogger who has been wronged by this. There are other bloggers who will be participating in this discussion about the silent crime of plagiarism in the next few days. Several of them are in the same boat as Adele. They have recognised their reviews lifted almost word for word and used elsewhere. What a cop-out, hey? What a slap in the face. What a disgustingly pointless and sneaky thing to do! Why lie? If you can’t cope with the review load, fess up, tell the publishers and take the time to read and review the books you have got teetering next to the computer. Where is your pride in your own work? Your morals and your ethics? Don’t steal – you’ll be caught out and your name will be mud. In fact, you have been caught out and your name is mud. Steps are being taken and legal counsel will be sought.
It may not seem much to you guys. I mean, a review is a review. How bad can it be? We bloggers don’t have much we can call our own – no matter how much I kid about “owning” my authors I review, they really don’t belong to me. All I own on this blog, and all my friends who review with me on here, is our voice and our love for reading and reviewing. If someone in our community – who although big, is actually quite small – can take our hard work and put it out there as their own, where do we stand? If we say nothing, we condone the theft. If we kick up a fuss, hopefully a larger audience will realise it is taking place and start paying closer attention to what they are reading online and reconsider where they are placing their trust.
Plagiarism is theft. It sucks. It sucks for me as a blogger. I can only imagine how awful it must be for writers who have gone through this in the past, where their work has been lifted and others have profited. But fortunately there are people out there, fans and friends, who pick up on these things and they are quick to point it out. Please, pop along to some of the other blogs I’m linking to below, and support this drive we’re initiating, the whole book bloggers against plagiarism thing – it’s worthwhile.
Tirzah http://www.thecompulsivereader.com/
Kristi http://www.thestorysiren.com/
Steph Su http://stephsureads.blogspot.com/
Lenore http://presentinglenore.blogspot.com
Sharon http://www.sharonlovesbooksandcats.com/
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